


[Draft saved at 17:45]

by Omi_Lightbearer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, John Loves Sherlock, John Watson's Blog, M/M, POV John Watson, Sad, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omi_Lightbearer/pseuds/Omi_Lightbearer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after HLV. While Sherlock was out looking for clues as to Moriarty's whereabouts, John decided to write a blog entry; one that he would never post. Warning: Major spoilers from all seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Draft saved at 17:45]

John headed to Baker Street right after work. Since the day Sherlock had killed Magnussen and Moriarty had made his reappearance, life was more hectic than ever and Sherlock disappeared every now and then, sometimes for two days in a row. He still wanted John’s assistance —or company, at least— and John had taken to dropping by his old apartment in the evenings. That day he had got a text message from Sherlock around 3 p.m. saying that he would return in time for dinner. One of Mary’s girl friends was spending the afternoon with her and that put John’s mind at ease. Somewhat. Part of him felt guilty about leaving her alone most of the time, especially now that her belly had grown really big with their child. Another part of him —one he was ashamed to admit existed— wanted to avoid spending much time in their house, staring at the wife he really didn’t know, the stranger he felt some sort of affection for but didn’t love anymore.  

Sherlock wasn’t home yet, he realized as he opened the door and stepped into the sitting room. He glanced at his red chair, then at the laptop lying on the desk nearby. It was John’s; he must have left it there the night before and Sherlock had been using it again. John dropped his jacket on the couch, sat down and looked at the screen. He pushed the _on_ button and waited for a while. No matter how many times he changed his password, Sherlock kept cracking it. It had annoyed him once, a million years before, but it didn’t anymore. It was Sherlock. He was supposed to be like that, to be around and doing that sort of thing. Sherlock _was_ around and relief still flooded John’s entire system whenever he pondered how many times he had been about to lose him. Or actually lost him and then got him back against all odds. If he didn’t have an actual job to go to every morning, he would be following Sherlock around 24/7 just to make sure he didn’t vanish or get hurt again. God knew he would slap the man if he found out he was running unnecessary risks.

John’s eyes focused on the screen before him, and he clicked on the familiar icon that led to the dashboard of his blog. He hadn’t written anything in a good while and he felt a sudden urge to do so. The whole Moriarty affair was so puzzling at the moment that he didn’t even have a coherent story to tell or a decent chronicle of the events to write. There were only bits and pieces and the man himself was missing, silent, hidden somewhere. He opened a “new entry” tab and his fingers started typing.  

_Little is known as to the criminal’s whereabouts now, but Sherlock is looking for clues and coming up with theories all the time. If he is truly alive we will find him, and hopefully lock him up for good._

John paused to think. It wasn’t really working. That wasn’t what he wanted to write about, he realized. Not even bothering to delete what he’d written, he started a new paragraph.

_Congratulations to all of you who noticed before I did. You are really observant. I’ve been consistently lying to myself for ages. Truth is, I twisted the idea around in my mind, I had to come to terms with it, but I knew. I was drawn to Sherlock the moment we met. I’m not gay. I haven’t ever looked at another bloke like that, but he was so different from anyone else, magnetic, inscrutable. He was a whirlpool I just wanted to dive into, and he seemed to like me. I felt lucky. I had another shot at life, at excitement and adventure. Running around the city with him was fun, but I also enjoyed watching him think or listen to him playing the violin as we sat in our living-room. That was the golden age: cases, Chinese food, Sherlock’s eyes flickering in the lamplight. I dated women but I missed him every minute I was away, even as I was flirting, smiling and trying to get laid. I wanted Sherlock more badly than I could admit to myself, and certainly more than he would ever guess_ _—_ _clever as he is, he can’t figure out that kind of emotion. I sometimes think that if I had got closer, done something, said something, he would have understood. What he would have done then must remain a mystery. I suspect he wouldn’t have turned me down like he did Irene Adler. He didn’t smile at women. He was fond of me._

_Life was perfect as it was. I know now that I would never have settled down with a woman if he had stayed around. The notion of leaving my chair at Baker Street, of not sharing the living space with Sherlock, would have struck me as ridiculous. Nothing was boring or commonplace with Sherlock. I made myself valuable to him. If only I had done something, explained to him that if he had a chance to get involved with someone at all it would have to be me; no one else understood him or thought him perfect just the way he was. I remained silent and we were both content._

_That life, our life together, came crashing down too unexpectedly as Sherlock jumped and was given up for dead. And then I was alone, more heart-broken than I’d been in my life. I had seen his lifeless body on the pavement, taken his pulse and failed to find any proof that his heart was beating. I clung to the hope that he might have survived, just because he always did. He could pull it off. He did pull it off, damn him. Not a message, not a letter. He could have sent a sign that he was alive in a million different ways without arising suspicion. He let me cry my eyes out, smash things, go back to therapy. I had let him become the sun in my own planetary system and now the sun was off and life was impossible._

John had typed the first few paragraphs really fast, barely stopping to correct a couple of typos. He was letting it all out. He was going through every feeling again, as if he were playing and watching a film about his past, laughing and crying at all the right moments. He would have teared up but for the fact that Sherlock was still alive and that reality superseded his past sorrow. However, he still paused and heaved a sigh. He had buried Sherlock then. He had buried his love for Sherlock really deep so it couldn’t tug at his heartstrings.   

_Let me explain what I did then. I looked for light. I went about looking for any source of light and warmth. I lived a no-life for a year, but at some point during the second year it dawned on me that Sherlock was gone for good. I was raw with pain and I needed to heal. She popped up, a flower in a graveyard. Mary was pretty, she was nice. She soothed me. I talked myself into asking her out. I didn’t expect to like her that much, to be honest. I just needed to feel loved, to matter to someone. Don’t think I was showering her with chocolates and flowers from day one, Sherlock forgotten. It didn’t happen like that. I grew fond of her little by little, and decided that maybe there was some happiness to be had after all. I would propose to this woman and live in a nice house in the suburbs. I’d be warm at night and busy during the day, and wouldn’t have time to remember Sherlock. I was determined to do it. But, whatever Sherlock thinks, I didn’t make a choice. I didn’t choose her. That was not the informed decision one makes when faced with two plausible options. Had Sherlock been alive, I wouldn’t have been sitting in a fancy restaurant and hiding a ring box in my pocket. He was dead._

_He came back from the dead. I felt such anger and such relief when I saw him that I could have died of a heart attack myself._

_Mary surprised me by encouraging me to have a bit of my old life with Sherlock back. I was an utter mess. I couldn’t readily forgive him, but neither could I shun him. Did I love him that day when he made me believe we were going to die in that godforsaken train? I don’t know. I felt something, and it even made sense in some twisted way, to go down together. It made much more sense than living without him had. But I had Mary too. I had Mary now, and I was going to marry her._

_Sherlock had changed a little. He was more human, so to say. He sometimes looked worried and even sad. He was in a frenzy over the wedding preparations. I should have noticed. I should have been able to feel his panic. He slipped into his best man outfit and never said a word against Mary. He probably sensed something was wrong, but he did try to think the best of her. I always expected him to get between us and was disappointed. I told myself that I would have them both. I could still go around with Sherlock all day and go home to my wife at night._

_Why, then, did we get that close before the wedding? He offered to give me dancing lessons and I smirked as I pictured him mustering all his patience, possibly complaining about my two left feet. No such thing happened. He was so damn nice. I enjoyed touching him more than I had a right to. It was such a turn-on that I don’t know how he could have missed the symptoms. And it happened yet again, during the stag-do. Drunk as I was, as we both were, the comfortable closeness was there. I felt very brave all of a sudden. Sherlock has twisted the facts a little so nobody knows what went on between us that night. Even if it wasn’t much. I kissed him at some point during our silly game. He didn’t turn me down, just gave me a quizzical look. He had had too much too drink and he was trying to make sense of it but couldn’t. I sat back on my chair and we never mentioned it again. I was an arsehole for taking advantage of the situation when I had failed to do the same in a thousand occasions while sober. I forgot all about Mary that night. At some point, as the alcohol kicked in, I was more lucid than I had been in months. Sherlock was there. We even went into the drunk tank together. I should have done it then. I should have called the whole thing off and faced the consequences. Of course, there would have still been a baby because she was already pregnant. But at least Sherlock would have known I chose him._

By this point John knew that he would never publish that entry. It had taken him so long to put all the little facts together, to make sense of the evolution of their relationship. No one else had the right to know. And still, he guessed writing was some sort of therapy after all, so he might as well continue. He glanced at his phone, which was sitting on the table next to the laptop. There were no messages from Sherlock, so he assumed the man was still coming home at some point. It would be wise to finish typing the whole thing way before he did, John thought, or he would not be able to keep a straight face when he looked at him.

_That I really shouldn’t have kissed him became apparent to me on my wedding day. I wasn’t ready for his speech, and felt cold and warm as the words flowed all around me, at me. A case was thrown in all of a sudden and it was a relief, for it took my mind off the emotions that Sherlock was displaying_ _—_ _and in public, on top of all. There were so many moments during that day in which I felt guilty about what I had just done. It was difficult to be a happy bridegroom when Sherlock had all but ripped his heart open for me to have a peek at its contents. I felt frustrated even as I welcomed this steady stream of unexpected affection coming my way. He should have told me before. He should have dropped the pretence that he was comfortable in his best man’s shoes. There was only one sane thing I could do. I looked at my beautiful bride, mentally listed the reasons why I’d grown attached to her, and tried to push everything else to the background. Sherlock was the first one to deduce Mary was pregnant, and he thought the news was a game-changer. I saw him step back for good as he vowed to be there for the three of us. We’d been dancing around each other, throwing signals, words, looks at each other for so long. He had voiced his rejection of love and emotions so many times that I didn’t dare think he was in love with me, but it was clear to me that I mattered to him in a way no one else did. I could have coaxed him into a relationship, succeeded where all those attractive women had failed. That boat had sailed._

_I got married and mayhem ensued. It turned out I didn’t know who my wife really was or what she had done, and she had been content to let me think she was a normal girl who would be happy to live in the suburbs and have her mani-pedi done once a month. One dreadful event followed another. Sherlock got high again, I found out by chance_ _—_ _he should have called me. I was so bored and angry because we’d been apart for a month and it felt like another two years, and Sherlock didn’t seem to care. Then I saw Janine emerge from Sherlock’s bedroom and I confess that the mere idea of Sherlock dating that woman made my heart sink. I’m not really the jealous type but I couldn’t help it. I should have seen right through Sherlock’s ploy but I was just too upset. Didn’t he notice then? Didn’t he see that I couldn’t stand the thought that someone else was being intimate with him? But then of course, I had done that exactly. Dated women. Married one. Even got her pregnant. I had no right to complain._

_The day Sherlock got shot, panic replaced all my other emotions. I couldn’t lose him again. God, why did that have to keep happening? He almost died. They said he had practically died and miraculously opened his eyes again. The danger seemed to be over and he started getting better, but there was something he wasn’t telling me or anyone. I could cope with that. He was alright; we would be okay, I thought. Then Mary was revealed to be the shooter. An assassin, an agent, an extremely dangerous woman who hadn’t hesitated to shoot my best friend. That same best friend whose death I had been mourning when I met her. How could she do that? Lie to me, deceive me so completely with her makeshift identity and her false childhood stories, and attempt to kill Sherlock on top of that._

_My heart broke again, and they had the nerve to blame me for being fond of danger and psychopaths. For some time, whenever I looked at Mary and at Sherlock, I could feel nothing. Gradually I realized that it wasn’t Sherlock’s fault really. He could have bloody deduced the truth about her, but he couldn’t be blamed for who she was. I started spending more time with him again. At first I would just sit on my chair at the Baker Street apartment and sulk. He let me do it. He knew I needed to stew in my own juice for as long as it took. We never talked about the flash drive because Sherlock didn’t want to interfere in my decision, but he shot me questioning glances from time to time. He was anxious about Magnussen and the hold he seemed to have on everyone. One day I decided I wasn’t that angry anymore and I attempted to have a real conversation with Sherlock. I asked him whether he had a plan. For a few weeks he refused to let me in on it._

_Sherlock wanted me to make up with my wife. I pointed out more than once that she wasn’t even legally my wife, since she had faked her birth certificate. He answered that she was the mother of my child, that she had never meant to kill him, that she had changed for the better. If he had ever felt anything for me, wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to step between me and Mary? Why did he refuse to do it? It was maddening. It made me think that we could have never been together after all. I agreed to take Mary back. When I had made up my mind about that he let me know how he planned to get to Magnussen on Christmas Day. His parents, Mary, Wiggins, Mycroft and I all had a part to play. Of course, there were some things he didn’t tell me. There always are. What could have been a simple manoeuvre to retrieve some compromising documents ended up in disaster as it turned out that there were no documents but we were at Magnussen’s mercy all the same. When Sherlock shot him, the first question that crossed my mind was whether he had ever intended to do so, whether it had been the unspoken B-plan that he hadn’t told me about. Had it been a gut reaction? Now Mary wasn’t in danger anymore, but he was, and I was sure that they were going to take him out on the spot, right before my eyes. He was so close to dying again. And once again I thought, dear God please don’t let it happen._

_I was still in shock when they took him. They dragged him up into a helicopter and didn’t let me follow. Mycroft told me where they were going, however. Sherlock would be held at the basement in the MI6 building while a decision was made regarding his future. I was still terrified that someone at the top of the chain of command would determine that they had to dispose of him anyway, that he was too unstable. I phoned Mycroft to remind him that Sherlock was his brother. He snapped something about his being full aware of the fact. No charges would be brought against me since the murder had taken place before so many witnesses. I went back to Mary, told her what had happened and felt blood freeze in my veins when I saw how pleased she looked. She should have feigned shock, but relief that Magnussen was dead overrode all other emotions on her face. Magnussen dead, and Sherlock potentially out of the way. Has she always known? Has she always been aware of how close she was to losing me to Sherlock, not once but a hundred times? I felt whatever little love I’d been managing to hold on to dissolve. It may be true that you can only really love one person at a time._

_After nagging Mycroft repeatedly I got permission to see him. He had been held for over 48 hours by the time I followed one of the special security agents downstairs. The armed man stood nearby, keeping an eye on us. I can’t forget how worn out he looked, and still he smiled a bit when he saw me. We talked for a while, but there was something he wasn’t saying. There was a chance we were being recorded so I didn’t make much of it. I assumed he knew best, the way I tend to do. I should have held his hand. I should have thanked him for making yet another sacrifice for me._

John stared at the screen, mad at himself about his less than sufficient mastery of the English language. His narrative was fragmented, incomplete. He hadn’t even mentioned the fire, and how Sherlock had saved him then. He had never stopped thinking about that since the moment he saw the clip at Magnussen’s house. How many people would run into a blazing bonfire to save a friend? Sherlock didn’t even hesitate, not for a second. He was the one who saved him, not Mary. She stood there. She watched Sherlock do it. He shook his head, rubbing at his left eye, and went on typing. No matter what the result looked like, he needed to do it.

_I think that he loves me. Obtuse as I can be in certain situations, there was some raw emotion on his face that day in the dungeons and later on the tarmac. He looked so human, so vulnerable that I couldn’t even keep my eyes on him. I was afraid to see my old, battered feelings returned. What would happen then? Especially after I learnt that he was leaving, I didn’t see the point in forcing him to say it. I even wanted him not to do it, so I could later cling to the idea that it had all been a product of my imagination, that I had wanted him to be in love with me but that wasn’t really the case. He said goodbye and the words were there, unspoken, widening the rift between us. I was feeling numb; not even sad or heartbroken. The whole thing seemed unreal. Knowing that he was leaving and why didn’t make it any easier to wrap my mind around his absence. I suddenly understood that I would have pined for two years even if I had known that he was alive after the jump. I wouldn’t have mourned him but I would have suffered because I had taken his presence for granted and he was as necessary to me as air or water. I saw him get on the plane and felt a sudden urge to follow him. I made sure that my face revealed none of it. It seemed that I was stuck with Mary for good. I didn’t know if I’d ever see Sherlock again._

_I would have never thought that Moriarty’s sudden comeback would make me happy. What kind of father would want his child to be born in a world with Moriarty in it? But his timing was impeccable, I grant him that. When I learnt the truth later_ _—_ _that Sherlock had actually had a one-way ticket to Eastern Europe, that he expected to die_ _—_ _, it struck me as ironic that Moriarty should have saved Sherlock’s life this time, after putting in so much effort to see him beaten and dead. An extremely dark day was lit by fireworks when I saw the plane turning back and Sherlock’s confused face raising his eyebrows at Mycroft and me. I felt overjoyed because Sherlock was untouchable now, Mycroft needed him, the whole nation needed him. I got to keep him even if he wasn’t, couldn’t be mine._

_Ever since that day I’ve tried to help Sherlock as much as I can as he works towards solving the mystery of Moriarty’s nationwide live feed. There is plenty of evidence that he is alive and rebuilding his empire but he still hasn’t made himself visible or contacted Sherlock. He’s biding his time. He wants to do things properly or not at all this time. As for us, I do spend as much time in my old apartment as I can. Sometimes we look at each other and we know that the elephant in the room is still there, sitting comfortably on another chair between us. The only difference is that I wish I could say something. But what is there to say? I think he loves me, while he thinks I’ve moved on and I’m completely off-limits. He should know better. He should use those wonderful powers of deduction to deduce that one thing. Or rather, several things._

_That I’m sorry I don’t know how to make it right, especially since I’m going to be grounded the moment the baby is born._

_That I would spend every minute of every day beside him, making sure he doesn’t disappear or get killed, trying to make him sleep, eat and take care of himself._

_That I love him now because I’ve always had._

What else was there that he could write? He had never faced those three words, and he stared at them now, mulling them over.

John scrolled up to see how much he’d written. He didn’t know how long he’d been at it but a glance at the clock told him that it was a quarter to six. Sherlock would be home soon. He poured himself a glass of water and took a long gulp. Then his phone beeped. A message. As he read it, he almost lost his grip on the glass and barely succeeded in placing it on the counter. It was Mary and she was on her way to the hospital. The baby was coming early, three weeks before the due date. John knew he had to be there, wanted to be there. He typed a very short answer: _On my way_. Then he grabbed his jacket and glanced at the computer screen. There was little time to think. He would never post that blog entry so he might as well delete it. He clicked on the top right corner, saw the text vanish before his eyes and all but ran out of the flat and down the stairs.

* * *

Sherlock had spent the whole day picking up pieces of the puzzle that did not quite fit together yet. It was six o’clock when he made his way back to his flat. No matter how long a day he had had, the prospect of meeting John always made him feel better.

He knew that something was off as soon as he entered the sitting-room. A quick look at the table, chair, kitchen counter and switched on laptop told him that John was gone. There were no signs of struggle so he had not been kidnapped —a possibility that had become real once again with Moriarty alive and kicking. Sherlock glanced at his phone but there were no new messages. He approached the desk slowly and the familiar layout of the blogging website caught his eye. It seemed that John had been writing an entry before he left. He clicked on the update button but no new entries showed up on the homepage. Curiosity got the better of him and he accessed the dashboard —John was still logged in and, even if that hadn’t been the case, Sherlock knew the password. A draft had been automatically saved twenty minutes earlier.

Sherlock sat down and read very fast. He grew increasingly certain that such an entry had never been meant for his or anyone else’s eyes, that John had used the blank document as a sort of diary. It took a long moment for the implications of what he was reading to sink in. The realization that John returned his feelings thrilled and terrified him. Sherlock’s heart filled with hope for the very first time. He had felt so miserable ever since the wedding that the new, more positive emotion was unfamiliar. When he got to John’s final confession he scrolled up and reread the whole thing; he wanted to store every word in his mind palace safely. He hated himself for having caused John a suffering that went deeper than he had ever imagined. He would never leave John again, he decided. Lately the silences between them had stretched for too long; Sherlock had been thinking that he should tell John but the possibility of losing him forever had been unbearable. He now imagined what it could be like, their hands entwined, their lips on each other. Just like on the day of the stag do but better, because he would never have to pretend he didn’t remember again.  

Sherlock was thinking of the possibilities, of a future that could be far sweeter than he had imagined, when his phone beeped. It was a text from John. _Hospital. Baby is coming._

The four words felt like daggers to Sherlock’s heart and woke him up from his daydream. He sobered up and realized that there was nothing he could do about it. He glanced at the screen, selected and copied the text and stored it in the Cloud, where John would never be able to access it. Then he deleted the draft so that the man he loved could go on holding back the truth and fulfilling his obligations to his family.

By the time Sherlock left the apartment in the direction of the hospital, no traces of tears could be seen on his pale cheeks.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this one for a while because I needed to rewatch the whole series. I'm aware that the ending is sad, sorry...


End file.
